Cowboy Heart (Historical Western Romance) (Longren Family series #3, Kitty and Lukes story)

by Amelia Rose

  Lightning struck again. There was another long pause before the thunder.

  "If it rains?" I yelled.

  "Pray," Luke yelled back.

  The black and white dogs began harrying the cows, barking and guiding, forcing them forward. Luke pushed them, moving so surely with every move, cutting the horse in and out, harrying the cows toward the herd until they saw the rest of the herd moving in a stream of brown and white and ran to join them, the calves staying close to their mothers.

  We didn't have the same luck. A gust of wind came up, fanning the flames, and the horse shied back. In seconds, the yard was cut off, fire moving south and east, taking out the pastures, the wind blowing it away from the structures but keeping us penned in.

  I slid down from the horse.

  "What are you doing?" Luke demanded. "We have to get out."

  "Horses in the corral!" I could see them beyond the blowing smoke, three of them, maybe saddled for the trail team that hadn't ridden out. I didn't know and didn't care; I just needed to get to them. "We'll move faster with two horses."

  Luke nodded, wheeled the horse around, and followed me. The three in the stall whinnied and thrashed. I saw another hand coming back for them, there were still ranch hands running everywhere on the ranch property. We converged at the corral with Luke right behind me.

  "Go," the hand said, simply, and picked me up as if I weighed nothing, slinging me onto the saddle. I grabbed hold and nudged the horse sharply. Luke turned again, facing south, letting the flames lead us. The houses were still untouched, might remain so if the wind didn't change.

  Or if it rained. Thunder again, closer this time. I followed Luke, staying to the west of the stream, to the west of the line of fire burning down to the south, staying just on the other side of the stream, the last of the fire breaks to actually hold.

  We made the gates of the ranch at the tail end of the herd when the lightning and thunder split overhead simultaneously and the deluge began. Within seconds, I was soaked, trousers clinging to me, shirt cold and clinging. Luke wheeled around and I saw the wildness on his face again, and I began to laugh.

  Ahead of us on the trail, heading south and west, probably to David Lord's property, the herd plodded, no longer running. Mud splashed up where the last in the herd trod. Rain streamed down, thunder and lightning sounding over and over. I'd never felt so wet, or so free. I pulled the horse around, rode in a circle around Luke, who stared at me as if I'd gone mad and, yes, we needed to follow the herd, and, of course, I had to stop laughing eventually, even now the Big Sky Ranch could be threatened, but surely the fires were out by now or going out, they couldn't sustain themselves in the rain that slashed down, now driven by wind, could they?

  Luke, watching me, his head tilted, expression wary, slowly began to smile. The smile transformed his face, from somber and tan to bright and handsome. I'd missed his smile, missed him, truth be told, I was used to having a friend who was male, used to Johnny, and Luke had filled that space.

  A thought that made me pause. Had he? Filled that space?

  "Kathryn—" he started.

  "—Kathryn Collins!" The bellow came from behind us, someone riding back up past the herd, from the south.

  I turned, saw Robert, and felt my heart skip a beat. He was riding fast, his face concerned, rainwater slicking off his hat, catching in that russet beard. His shirt, soaked through, outlined his shoulders and chest, and he was watching me, the way he sometimes did.

  "You're alright?" I called.

  "Never better, but this is a hellish mess." He waved at the rain and mud and swiftly drowning fire I'd just been laughing at. "Your kin are looking for you."

  "Sarah must be worried," I said, and, "Is William alright?"

  "Bleeding," Robert said. "We're heading for David Lord's property, can graze the cattle there until everything's set to rights. The ranch?"

  "Standing when we rode out," Luke said. "Rain caught us directly after."

  "Hands?"

  "Half a dozen with shovels. Miss Kathryn, will you be all right to catch up on your own?"

  No, I wanted to say, but only because I wanted to ride with Luke, the look in his eyes matched the wild way I felt, but the horses were in no condition to be run and the rain and mud-slick ground probably made it all the more inadvisable. "I'll be fine. I'll find Sarah and William."

  Even if I didn't, it was impossible to get lost out here following hundreds of cows.

  Luke nodded; Robert, looking between us, nodded, and they spun and headed back toward the ranch. From the distance, I could see the ranch house standing and didn't see any flames still burning despite the rain.

  I turned and followed the cattle.

  Chapter 8

  The rain stopped before everyone—cattle, cowboys, Sarah, William, and I—made it to David Lord's property. His handlers came out to meet us, driving the herd into fenced grazing lands that would keep them from straying onto neighboring grain farms. Not that Lord's Acres had to worry about a neighbor like Mr. Getties. Here, fences made good neighbors and the grazing laws were adhered to.

  Sarah and William were as bedraggled as I was. William's shoulder wound had broken open and was bleeding again, soaking a red target onto his shirt. The rain soaked fabric spread the blood down his side.

  "It looks worse than it is," he told me when he saw me staring, though I thought most of that was for Sarah's sake. His grimace of pain when he got out of the wagon didn't convince anyone of anything.

  "Your outriders said this had something to do with Getties," David Lord said as he led us up the porch steps and into his kitchen. His wife met us with towels and blankets and said hot coffee was on the stove if we all wanted to go into the kitchen. I thought being in the kitchen would track up her floors rather less, and followed everyone in.

  William suffered the indignity of Sarah checking his shoulder, only to announce the bleeding had almost stopped.

  "Which is what I said," William said, fatigued. He wrapped his good hand around a mug of coffee and Sarah took the chair at the table directly beside his and held his other hand where it rested in his lap. She held it with both hands, ignoring the coffee in favor of contact.

  David Lord straddled a chair at the kitchen table. I took a stool in the corner, shivering a little even after Mrs. Lord draped a blanket over my shoulders. The coffee was thick, strong and very welcome.

  "Mrs. Lord, this is Kathryn Collins, my wife's sister," William said. "She's the one who saw Cynthia Getties crossing the creek onto our property, north off the eastern pasture, up where the cottonwoods caught."

  I stared at him. Why phrase it that way? Or start the story there? I'd seen Cynthia Getties starting the fires, after all—

  Except, I hadn't. The fires had already been going by the time I arrived there and Sarah was already fighting with Joshua Getties. What I'd seen, truly, was a woman who handed me back a wrap that wasn't Sarah's which she said that Sarah had left at her house, and, after that, I'd seen Sarah, wistful and sad, saying it wasn't her shawl, and then—

  —Then I'd told Sarah what I'd seen, Cynthia Getties, and Sarah had remembered that when the stream stopped running and she went looking for the cause in the place where I'd seen Mrs. Getties.

  And then what I'd seen was Sarah struggling with Mrs. Getties' husband. As Cynthia Getties stomped on the fires that were already set.

  "Mr. Getties threw Sarah into a tree," William went on. "Kathryn, tell them what you saw."

  I looked up, startled, wondering what I'd missed, and found David Lord and his wife watching me, as well as Sarah and William. For the first time in weeks, I blushed, stammering and tongue-tied, and wished there was a rabbit hole I could crawl down and hide in.

  "Dear?" Mrs. Lord encouraged.

  I nodded, took a sip of coffee, swallowed wrong, coughed and blushed. "William, I don’t mean to contradict you, but I'm not sure what I saw."

  To his look of surprise, I said, "Mrs. Getties was on the path on the day she ga
ve me back the wrap she said was Sarah's. I don't know why she'd do that, except she seemed so surprised that someone was there, I thought she might be…" I stopped, not sure I wanted to speculate.

  "I think she was looking at the cottonwoods," William said. "With the drought and her idiot husband damming up the east tributary every other day, they were dried out and just waiting to catch fire."

  David Lord looked at me as if for confirmation. I chose to ignore it and stumble onward.

  "I didn't see that. I saw her when she gave me the shawl. And I saw her again today after Sarah got there. Sarah would know more than I do."

  Sarah looked bewildered, tired, sad and worried. When William looked at her, she said, "It wasn't my shawl, so I don’t understand what she was doing on our property. That's the first thing. But Kit's right; when I got there, there were already flames."

  "What made you go there?" David Lord asked.

  "Because of what Kitty said," Sarah said. "When the stream went dry, I thought of a Getties on our property."

  So I told them about seeing Cynthia Getties trying to kick out the flames and about her husband dragging her by the hair when they began to run. Only they hadn't run, had they? Because they were still there when William arrived there.

  "You really think she was kicking out the flames?" William asked. He looked older than I'd ever seen him, very white and very tired.

  "That is what she was doing," I said. "She could have spread the fire much more easily. I don’t know if she started it."

  And I didn't know why it was important to make sure the doubt remained, just something about Sarah's sadness, the hope in her voice, if I admitted it to myself, when she'd asked if Cynthia had mentioned her.

  This wasn't the time or place to ask her. I'd have to wait.

  There were many things I needed to ask her now, about the letters, about Cynthia, about whether I could, after all, stay at Big Sky Ranch.

  Whether that was a good idea. Not all my ideas are good ones.

  The Lords' kitchen was scrubbed clean and it was about a third of the size of Sarah's. Lord's Acres was a working ranch but Mr. Lord's accountancy business came first, cattle second, and they only had 400 acres. The kitchen table, covered with red-checked grease cloth, sat all of us. Outside, the eaves still dripped and the late August heat was now sullen and heavy, not dry.

  Tiny and Mike joined us when they'd finished moving the herd. I suspected William was frustrated by not seeing to getting the herd settled and probably by not bunking with the hands. There wasn't any reason he and Sarah couldn't go back to Big Sky by evening if they wanted to, and there were quite a few of us, more than would be considerate as houseguests.

  "How was the ranch?" William asked. "Buildings? Ranch house? Barn? Bunkhouse?"

  "Boss, everything's standing," Tiny said. He hovered near the door, like visiting the neat, cozy kitchen of the Lords made him uncomfortable. He certainly didn't fit. "After that downpour, everything is out, but some of 'em are headed back there right now, troubleshooting."

  William nodded, winced and began asking more questions.

  Sarah turned to David Lord. "Sheriff is headed to the Getties' land. Joshua shot William and ran. He'd already sent Cynthia running before him, threatened her."

  "She didn't want to go?" Mrs. Lord slid into a chair next to me at the table.

  "I don't know," Sarah said softly. She looked at me.

  I pursed my lips. I wasn't sure what Cynthia Getties had been doing, only the results of her being in the trees along with her husband. "I don't know," I said. "I told you what I saw. How did Getties come to shoot you?"

  "Shoved her into the woods, saw the fire was dying out just then and pulled a gun." He laughed ruefully. "Man can't hit the broad side of a barn."

  "For which you're grateful," Sarah said.

  "He shot you, didn't he?" David Lord said. "The Sheriff will arrest him."

  Sarah said nothing.

  Robert and Luke arrived at the same time, hours later, when the hour had grown so late we were all committed to spending the night at Lord's Acres. That suited Sarah fine, I thought—she hadn't left William's side for more than a couple minutes at any time. William, for his part, was trying to hide the pain he was in, but he was exhausted and worried and needed both rest and the news Robert and Luke brought.

  They both crossed to me before going to William. Despite my relief and confusion, I didn't miss Sarah putting a restraining hand gently on William's uninjured arm before he spoke.

  "Miss Collins?" Robert asked.

  "Kathryn?" Luke asked.

  As if they were both checking on whom I was. Not that I was at all certain what I wanted them to ask.

  "You're both safe and sound," I said, pointlessly.

  Of course they were, but I needed reassurance, just as William did when he ignored Sarah's hand in the next instance and asked, "What news?"

  "We lost one building," Robert said. "Tack room. The one on the northeast edge."

  "Everything in it," Luke said. His eyes met mine and I thought the misery was creeping back into them, but he looked steely, as determined as I felt of late.

  "We needed that equipment," William fumed, starting upright on the couch.

  Sarah said, calmly, "William Kennedy, everything stored in that building was old and extra and you know it. You said a dozen times you should tear that building down and sell off anything that was still worth a damn." When his expression turned shocked and he started to chastise, she said, "Your words, of course, my love," and smiled like a Cheshire cat.

  "What else?" William said, turning his attention to the ranch hands.

  "The other buildings are all up. We lost the north grazing and east pasture, a swath of south, but southwest pasture is open and west grazing untouched."

  "West's not our land," William said.

  "But open for grazing," Sarah contradicted instantly. "Stop looking for things to worry about." And then, ignoring her own advice, she turned to Robert and Luke.

  "What happened at the Getties' farm?"

  "Sheriff arrested him. Farm's being run by his overseer in his absence, I guess. Mrs. Getties screamed like a banshee."

  Sarah looked down. "She wasn't arrested?"

  "Says she was trying to put out the fire, ma'am. That lightning sparked it, she and her husband were taking a walk, saw it start."

  "On our land?" William and Sarah asked together.

  "Sheriff asked the same question," Luke said.

  "She'll probably sell the farm and go home," Sarah said. "Her mother's ill, she's been worried and wanting to go back to Nebraska. Maybe now she can."

  William put a gentle hand on the back of her neck. They were sitting side by side on the davenport now. "Farm's probably in his name, Sare."

  "And he'll need it for legal defenses," David Lord said, standing at last, spinning the chair back around with an ease of familiarity before shoving it under the table. "But she'll have a portion of that to get her home." He sounded like he meant to give her the funds himself if need be.

  "We could use a grain farm to do business with," Luke said, contemplatively.

  "You buying?" Robert asked. His tone was aggressive. I thought if they'd been talking in a saloon, there might be a fight before long. Robert stood, positioning himself between Luke and William and between Luke and me.

  "Maybe I am," Luke said, looking past Robert as though he wasn't there, "If William would be willing to do business with me."

  William laughed and looked like it hurt and he regretted it. "More than, Michaels. 'Course you'll keep your grain prices rock bottom for me?"

  "Man's got to earn a living," Luke said, which made William laugh again.

  "Farm's not even for sale yet," David Lord said. "There's time for these decisions t' be made. I think everyone needs to get some rest. We have a bunkhouse and a guest room, sorry to say only one. Would the ladies like to share the guest room and the gentlemen—"

  "I think Sarah would like to stay wit
h William," I said, not merely thinking it but feeling it, as if Sarah would have to be broken into pieces to be removed from William's side.

  "You're not bunking with the hands," Sarah said, already shocked as if I'd suggested it.

  If only we'd been alone, I could have said, "No?" in such an innocent voice and seen her eyebrows fly up the way I've always been able to make them. Kitty Anne, don't tease your sister, my father would say, but he was always laughing. It was too easy to get Sarah's goat. She was big hearted and much too proper to be my sister.

  We weren't alone and so I asked if perhaps I could sleep on the davenport, which looked far less comfortable than stretching out on the Lord's front porch would be, but it won tacit approval from everyone and David Lord went off with Robert and Luke to show them to the bunkhouse, where Tiny and Mike had gone earlier to settle with the men, and Mrs. Lord bustled off with Sarah, William hanging back until the women could come back out of the guest room.

  In the now silent parlor, exhaustion caught up with me. I was grimy from soot and aching from head to toe and still wearing the comfortable but now filthy trousers that I'd end up sleeping in.

  I sat down beside William on the davenport and rested my arms on the chair arm, my head on my arms.

  "Kitty, for everything you did for us today, I want to thank you." William's voice was gentle. "You took some risks."

  "I acted like Kitty," I said. "Some of my ideas work." Sentiment embarrasses me more often than not.

  "You helped out. You gave Sarah the idea that meant the fire was caught before too much time went by."

  I put Sarah in danger, I thought, but then, it had been Sarah's decision to go running into the woods by herself.

  Perhaps we were more alike than I'd previously thought.

  "You also saved those four cows."

  I was too tired to dissemble or even become tongue-tied and awkward.

  William kept going. "I know we talked about your staying on at Big Sky."

  His voice was soothing, gentle and slow. The ranch house was warm and my clothes finally starting to dry. With my eyes closed and my head resting on my arms, I was almost asleep. William's voice seemed to come from very far away.